Gus’s Year in Books

Hi

I’m Gus, and if you see me, I’ll usually have a book in-hand

I’m a reader, but I’m also a coder

And given my love of data visualization, I thought I’d give you a closer look into my annual library, using my skills in R

This year, I read 67 books

Here’s the full list

Title Author My Rating
A Long Petal of the Sea Isabel Allende 3
The Dark Between the Stars Poul Anderson 4
Either/Or Elif Batuman 5
The Immortalists Chloe Benjamin 2
The Martian Chronicles Ray Bradbury 3
My Sister, the Serial Killer Oyinkan Braithwaite 4
Boys and Oil: Growing Up Gay in a Fractured Land Taylor Brorby 2
Glory NoViolet Bulawayo 4
A Wolf at the Table Augusten Burroughs 1
Piranesi Susanna Clarke 4
LaRose Louise Erdrich 4
Carmilla J. Sheridan Le Fanu 3
The Story of a New Name (The Neapolitan Novels, #2) Elena Ferrante 5
The Story of the Lost Child (The Neapolitan Novels, #4) Elena Ferrante 5
Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (The Neapolitan Novels, #3) Elena Ferrante 5
My Brilliant Friend (The Neapolitan Novels, #1) Elena Ferrante 5
Sentimental Education Gustave Flaubert 3
American Gods (American Gods, #1) Neil Gaiman 3
The Ocean at the End of the Lane Neil Gaiman 4
The Immoralist André Gide 2
Cleanness Garth Greenwell 5
The Story of a Marriage Andrew Sean Greer 5
Lavinia Ursula K. Le Guin 4
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia Mohsin Hamid 4
The Girl on the Train Paula Hawkins 2
The Stranger's Child Alan Hollinghurst 2
A Widow for One Year John Irving 4
We Have Always Lived in the Castle Shirley Jackson 4
Black Leopard, Red Wolf (The Dark Star Trilogy, #1) Marlon James 3
The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth, #3) N.K. Jemisin 5
The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1) N.K. Jemisin 5
The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth, #2) N.K. Jemisin 5
The Broken Kingdoms (Inheritance, #2) N.K. Jemisin 3
The Kingdom of Gods (Inheritance, #3) N.K. Jemisin 4
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (Inheritance, #1) N.K. Jemisin 3
Mongrels Stephen Graham Jones 4
My Heart Is a Chainsaw (The Lake Witch Trilogy, #1) Stephen Graham Jones 3
Thousand Cranes Yasunari Kawabata 2
The Dead Zone Stephen King 2
The Latecomer Jean Hanff Korelitz 4
Other Terrors: An Inclusive Anthology Vince A. Liaguno 4
The First Book of Calamity Leek Paula Lichtarowicz 2
The Ask Sam Lipsyte 4
The Green House Mario Vargas Llosa 2
Priestdaddy Patricia Lockwood 4
No One Is Talking About This Patricia Lockwood 5
Sea of Tranquility Emily St. John Mandel 4
Station Eleven Emily St. John Mandel 4
On Being Gay: Thoughts on Family, Faith, and Love Brian McNaught 2
The Song of Achilles Madeline Miller 5
Circe Madeline Miller 5
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami 2
Who Fears Death (Who Fears Death, #1) Nnedi Okorafor 3
Detransition, Baby Torrey Peters 5
Fox & I Catherine Raven 2
Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie 5
The Ground Beneath Her Feet Salman Rushdie 3
Push Sapphire 2
Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife Sam Savage 3
Happy-Go-Lucky David Sedaris 5
A Carnival of Snackery: Diaries 2003-2020 David Sedaris 4
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules David Sedaris 5
The Lost Village Camilla Sten 2
Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well Douglas Stone 3
Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance John Waters 4
Harlem Shuffle Colson Whitehead 4
City Girl, Country Vet (Talyton St George, #1) Cathy Woodman 2

I read little novellas and big epics

My longest book was Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie, while my shortest book was Carmilla, by Sheridan Le Fanu

I read across 150 years

Sentimental Education,

1869

Other Terrors,

July 2022

And across 14 countries

Feel free to hover to see which authors I’ve read from each country! Countries are highlighted blue for authors who were born there (from their wikipedia pages).

I learned to not trust reviews

I plotted my rating of a book compared to its average rating. Spearman’s rank correlation is provided. The blue bars show predicted ratings produced by an ordinal regression, which fails to predict me rating a book at 3 stars.

Sometimes I REALLY Disagreed
Title Author My Rating Average Rating
A Wolf at the Table Augusten Burroughs 1 3.74
No One Is Talking About This Patricia Lockwood 5 3.58

And here are some of my favorites:

The series: The gays: The girlies:
The Neapolitan Novels The Song of Achilles Circe
The Broken Earth Trilogy Cleanness Either/Or
Detransition, Baby No One is Talking About This
Happy-Go-Lucky

Thanks for staying with me

Feel free to follow @AugustusPendle1 on Twitter and peruse my personal website